MILWAUKEE COUNTY

Gray skies couldn't stop Milwaukeeans from enjoying partial eclipse

Haley Hansen
Milwaukee

Cloudy skies couldn't deter Milwaukee residents from going outside to catch sight of Monday afternoon's partial solar eclipse. 

Dozens of people gathered downtown outside the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Central Library to watch the astronomical event. Others stood outside office buildings, sharing solar eclipse glasses with co-workers over their lunch break. 

People using eclipse glasses watch from outside the museum.

The museum had special telescopes to view the sun and had a live feed of the eclipse from NASA. The library hosted astronomy bingo and let people watch the eclipse from their roof. 

Corey Paige, 40, leaned against a building downtown while watching his first eclipse Monday afternoon. He said he was worried about rain earlier in the day, but nature pulled through. "It's great despite the cloud cover," he said. 

In Milwaukee, the eclipse started shortly before noon and hit its peak at 1:18 p.m. The eclipse finished about 2:40 p.m. A few eclipse viewers sat on curbs and sprawled on sidewalks to get the best look.

Kanisha Caldwell uses her eclipse glasses over her phone in an attempt to get a photo.

Margeaux Wilkinson, 39, of Oakland, Calif., watched the eclipse outside the museum with family and friends. Wilkinson's parents traveled to Idaho to see the eclipse, but she said she was much happier not bothering with large crowds and the traffic to see the 70-mile-wide "path of totality."

The partial eclipse was still awe-inspiring for Wilkinson's group. 

"It's really fun to see it in action," Wilkinson said, sporting a pair of solar eclipse glasses she received as a party gift from a wedding the previous weekend.

Shiloh Weber, a recent Milwaukee transplant, made a few friends while watching the eclipse from the Central Library's front steps. He and others at the library snapped photos of the eclipse by holding their glasses up to their smartphone lenses.

The 22-year-old said he wasn't quite sure what to expect since Milwaukee wasn't getting a full eclipse.  

"I didn't realize it would be this good," he said. "It's way better than I thought it would be."